I remember my sister laughing and sighing as she read a Harlequin romance at night in the bedroom we shared as children. At 10 I was not particularly interested in romance, but it made me fume that she was having fun that I wasn't privy to. She always got to do things first, since she was two whole years older. I insisted she tell me what was funny, but she just said, "Go read one yourself."

I did, and that began my romance with romances.

Back then, Harlequins were essentially reprints of books already published by Mills and Boon, a British publishing company. The authors were mostly British and Australian, so the heroes and heroines were too. It was then I fell in love with the Outback, Ayers Rock, quaint English villages and the occasional Dutch doctor, always a fixture in romances by Betty Neels. A kiss at the end of the book was sufficient for a preteen to sigh over longingly, and then it seemed fully plausible that a 38 year old man would fall in love with an 18 year old girl because of her courage and insight into life. I have, in my life, read literally thousands of romances, and I still get breathless over a hunky Aussie rancher. But times have changed, and that rancher is lot more likely to peel out of his clothes now than he was 30 years ago - in print, anyway.

The biggest changes in romances in the last few decades are in the amount and extent of description of intimate encounters, and the independence of the women. Even the genres with settings in pre-20th century times feature women who have more in common with their 21st century counterparts than the women of their own times. The best authors in those genres make a point of noting that their heroines are "not in the common way", which helps smooth over the anomaly. The sex itself gets quite anatomical, having wended its way over the years from a simple closed-mouth kiss, through intercourse described using the euphemistic "manhood" and "womanhood" for the pertinent parts, and finally in recent years using virtually any language you'd find in anything from sex manuals to street cant. Men who've never cracked open a romance novel might learn a few things if they brought themselves to do so.

My reading tastes became more discerning as I grew older, and coupled with the boom in romance publishing that allowed in a lot of lesser authors, I have found in the past couple of decades that not many authors can keep my interest through an entire book. I'm notorious for doing a "good parts" read - first chapter, pertinent mid-points (i.e. hot 'n steamy scenes) and last chapter - on most romances I get my hands on. Mostly I avoid the ones that I suspect will be that way, because I resent the money and time I spend on them. That makes it especially exciting when I find authors I enjoy enough to read all the way through. This article will deal with two who publish in the Regency or historical romance genre; I've recently discovered some I like in the fantasy/time travel category, so I'll get to them soon.